He drank freely, moreover, and the fancies which he could no longer
control were like fiery steeds escaping the driver’s restraining hand
and running away into a trackless wilderness. The very air seemed to
have been exhausted, and nothing existed for him but the game.

Folks began to discuss his bad luck. He certainly drew unlucky cards,
but he was playing his hand badly, and taking unreasonable risks. His
friends wanted to restrict the stakes and talk of the final round.
At first Hull did not take in what they were saying, and they had to
explain their words; then he drew himself up and became furiously
angry, shouting in his wrath and beating his fist on the table.

Then the stranger’s big eyes seemed to withdraw a little from him
and the rest; their glance appeared to be directed inward and some
of their lustre vanished. He laid down his cards and put his money
into his pocket, doing it carelessly, however, as if it were merely
a handkerchief. There was one more round to finish. Hull called out,
“I’ll play the bank,” and the stranger dealt him the cards. He glanced
at them quickly. His total was twenty-one…. Then something happened,
something strange and inexplicable. He threw his cards face downwards
upon the heap, saying, “I have lost again.”

The guest immediately showed _his_ cards. His eyes regained their
glitter, he counted his points, named the total, and threw his cards
down on the table.

It seemed to Hull as if he were falling from an unsteady foothold
down into an abyss below. “What have I been doing?” he asked himself
in stupefaction and despair. Now at last he began to see everything
as clearly as if he had just come into the room: the three glowing
electric globes under their protecting dome, the red-covered, lighted
table, his friends, the elderly stranger, the scattered cards and the
piles of notes.

“Where have I been? What have I been doing?” he stammered.

His brain grew alert again, and the thoughts that had been so confused
and obscure now became suddenly clear: it was as if he had drawn
aside the curtains and let in the light of day. Then he felt a sudden
distrust of himself, which made him uneasy. He held his head in his
hands awhile, striving to free it from the weight that seemed to
encircle it, and then raising himself erect, he said, “What have I been
doing? I held twenty-one in my hand, and then someone called out, in my
voice, ‘I have lost again.’ Look there!” He snatched the cards he had
thrown away from the heap where they lay, and turned them over. They
were an ace, a ten, and a knave–twenty-one!

The elderly stranger’s large grey eyes contracted until the pupils were
quite small and seemed to be gazing at a far-distant spot. A shudder
went through his body; it was perceptible, though hastily subdued. Then
his breast expanded and his breath came slowly and with difficulty, as
if he were having to pump the air direct into himself.

“Too late!” said he, briefly and decisively.

Hull made a slight gesture.

“My remark had nothing to do with you,” he said quietly; “it concerned
myself only. How much do I owe you?” he asked in a friendly tone.

“Thirty thousand marks!”

Hull emptied his pocket-book.

“You must content yourself till to-morrow afternoon with ten thousand
and, of course, an I O U for the rest. Will you be so good as to write
the amount and your address in this notebook?”

When Hull got his little notebook back, he read in it:

BALLING,
ROOM 15, EXCELSIOR HOTEL.

He passed over his I O U, smiling pleasantly as he did so.

“I am ready to give you your revenge, Herr von Hull,” said Balling,
as he rose. “Gentlemen, may I offer you my thanks for the evening’s
hospitality? Good-night!”

He said this almost abruptly, but in so decisive a tone that it brought
the others to their feet. Karstens offered him his car.

“No, thank you; my own is waiting for me.”

He walked away somewhat stiffly, as though tired out, and vouchsafed no
further farewell of any sort. The club attendant conducted him to the
outer door.

“Hull, you are off your head,” said Karstens, when the stranger had
left the room.

“What did really happen?” asked Hull quietly.

“Ask your purse!”

“My pocket-book is empty. Who won all my money?”

“Your friend there,” said Karstens, pointing to the door.

“My friend! I never set eyes on him before! How did he get here?”

“Hull, you certainly are needing the services of a good physician.
Emil, bring the telephone directory.” Karstens turned over the
leaves. “Here we are: Dr. Schramm, Psychopathological treatment, 35,
Ludwigstrasse….”

“I don’t understand your joke, my dear Karstens.”

“Well, who brought this fine vingt-et-un player here but you?”

“That is not true, Karstens.”

“Go to No. 35, Ludwigstrasse, my dear fellow, and quickly too.”

“Of course it was you who brought him, Hull,” said another.

“_I?_ _I_ brought him? At any rate, I don’t remember a thing about it,
but it may be so.”

Hull then withdrew, exhausted and stupefied, brooding over the problem
which had so strangely and suddenly opened up before him that evening.

When he awoke, towards morning, he had a dim and fleeting remembrance,
and he seemed to recall the stranger sitting at the same table with
him in the Café Bastin. He had an idea that they had been talking
together, and that it was about the theatre, but what they had said,
and which theatre it was about, he had not the slightest idea. In
the dim recesses of his mind he recalled merely the sensation of a
dazzling reflector that seemed to throw its beams upon him during the
conversation. Sleep was no longer possible, but, try as he would to
pierce these elusive fragments of memory and penetrate to the reality
behind them, he was quite unable to make anything out of them.

* * * * *